Power, Purity, And The Left

This question and answer from Philip Gourevitch’s interview with Thierry Cruvellier, a French writer who is the leading journalistic authority on international war-crimes trials, caught my attention. They’re talking about a trial in Cambodia of one of Pol Pot’s henchmen:

You make the key point that the Duch trial was the first international tribunal case to address the crimes of Communism. The Rwanda and Yugoslavia courts, like the prosecutions at Nuremberg and Tokyo, dealt with crimes of ultra-nationalist regimes, which you identify as ideologies of the right. Only the Cambodia tribunal has addressed the crimes of the left, and you say that made human-rights lawyers notably uneasy. You say they had great difficulty addressing the connection between Communist ideology and systematic mass murder. You say that much of the tribunal crowd preferred to imagine the Khmer Rouge as noble until it went awry and became vile—and that some were outright fellow-travellers. For instance, the woman hired by the U.N. to handle Khmer Rouge victims at the Duch trial was an unrepentant Maoist. Why was that? And how did this sympathy for the left affect the general atmosphere of the trial?

There is a historical lineage between the far left and the human-rights movement. In the nineteen-sixties, after Stalin’s terror was widely acknowledged; in the seventies, after Solzhenitsyn’s denunciation of the Gulag; and then, finally, in the eighties, after the horrors of Pol Pot were fully revealed, many Western intellectuals moved from the discredited and disgraced Marxism-Leninism to the ideals of universal human rights. As opposed to the boredom of prosaic reforms, advocating for human rights is, in its own way, another grandiose and poetic enterprise where we, as a people, fight against exploiters. As the French philosopher Raymond Aron astutely noted, human rights, as a political philosophy, is based on a notion of purity. It’s not about taking responsibility for a decision “in unpredicted circumstances, based on incomplete knowledge”—that’s politics, said Aron. Instead, human rights function as a refuge for utopia.

What was interesting to observe at the Khmer Rouge tribunal was that former Western Maoists or fellow-travellers were not transformed, when they became disillusioned with Communism, into skeptical minds. They now presented themselves as human-rights defenders. The appeal of “pure” ideologies seemed irresistible to them. Revolutionaries get indignant about police abuse or ruthless capitalism, and then forgive, in the name of the revolution, every injustice they had otherwise denounced. Interestingly, the moral indignation of human-rights activists can suddenly be silenced when institutions that they helped create and that were supposed to exemplify their ideals—such as international war-crimes tribunals—start violating the very principles they have claimed to stand for. They say that criticism would serve the “enemies” of justice. They begin to accept that the end justifies the means. Double standards widely apply. The drive that often made them efficient when they worked in a hostile environment now, when they are empowered, transforms into an intransigence that can make them very insensitive to realities that don’t fit their ideological paradigm. International tribunals can be a harsh reminder that injustice and unfairness are not incompatible with humanist intentions. [Emphasis mine — RD]

At the Cambodia tribunal, a surprising number of Westerners who did not come from the far left also showed a level of sympathy for the “good intentions” of the Communist project. As a result, the trial was never going to be a trial of Communism as a political philosophy. Instead, it was all about Pol Potism, circumscribed and vilified as a despicable betrayal of a genuine revolutionary ideal. Such leniency would not be seen at trials against ideologies of the right.

I am reminded of the tragicomic character Franz, the Swiss left-wing intellectual, in Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. He sees all of European history as a Grand March, from one progressivist “liberation” cause to the next, following his idealism, and never thinking of the consequences. This is a fair enough description of the problem with American progressivism. They are never satisfied with the world as it is, and never think of the possibility that the world as it is might be the best we can hope for under the circumstances. Rather, they push and they push and they push for utopia, and consider themselves virtuous pilgrims on the Grand March.

(True, the problem with American conservatives is that we are too much enamored of the evils we have, and insufficiently motivated to imagine a better way to live and to work to achieve that end.)

If you read the boldfaced material in Cruvellier’s response, and think of the culture war in this country over same-sex marriage and gay rights, you will understand much better the Error Has No Rights phenomenon, and the Law of Merited Impossibility — and you will better be able to anticipate what comes next in the name of justice.

Then there are your fellows at Rutgers University, who rose up to force the estimable Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state and national security adviser, to withdraw. The protest was worded with unusual care, citing the war in Iraq and the “torture” practiced by the Central Intelligence Agency. Cleverly omitted was the drone war. This elision allows the protesters to wish away the massive drone war that President Barack Obama’s administration has conducted now for more than five years, with significant loss of innocent life. As for the Iraq war, well, among its early and enthusiastic supporters was — to take a name at random — then-Senator Hillary Clinton. But don’t worry. Consistency in protest requires careful and reflective thought, and that is exactly what we should be avoiding here.

The literary critic George Steiner, in a wonderful little book titled “Nostalgia for the Absolute,” long ago predicted this moment. We have an attraction, he contended, to higher truths that can sweep away complexity and nuance. We like systems that can explain everything. Intellectuals in the West are nostalgic for the tight grip religion once held on the Western imagination. They are attracted to modes of thought that are as comprehensive and authoritarian as the medieval church. You and your fellow students — and your professors as well; one mustn’t forget their role — are therefore to be congratulated for your involvement in the excellent work of bringing back the Middle Ages.

Now, before I close, I would like to address those members of the Class of 2014 who might think that it’s wrong to ban speakers whose views you reject. Your reactionary belief in tolerance and open-mindedness is truly distressing. I beg you to remember that every controversial question has only one answer. You have absolutely nothing to learn from people whose opinions you dislike.

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65 Responses to Power, Purity, And The Left

There is no question to my mind that left wing radicals, who know nothing about how the real world works but only theories they have read about how it is supposed to work are not people you want to trust with absolute power and can cause an extraordinary bloodbath given absolute power. One of the great advantages of democracy and our systems of checks and balances is that it prevents anyone from having that sort of power and has good mechanisms of removing from power anyone who lets ideological purity get in the way of making things work well in the real world.

There is no danger of advocates of same sex marriage (or civil rights, or any other liberal/left project) getting absolute and unchecked power and being a new Communist dictatorship. Zero. Zip. Nada. Won’t happen.

Communists and other left wing totalitarians come to power by violent revolution against outdated, authoritarian, traditionalist regimes. If you look at how actual democracies fail in the real world, the danger almost always lies on the right.

I will also add the need to emphasize a distinction that our host continually blurs. It is the distinction between what is legal to express and what is socially acceptable. Our host constantly seems to be implying that while those dirty, rotten lefties want to make certain opinions socially unacceptable, conservatives want all opinions to be equally socially acceptable and have never considered any sort of opinion beyond the pale of acceptable discourse. This is frankly silly. While I think all of us can agree that any opinion, however odious, should be equally legal so long as it does not incite actual violence, I do not think anyone, and certainly not any conservative, wants all ideas to be equally socially acceptable. We simply differ on which ideas should and should not be socially acceptable. Deal with it.

Rod: “they only seem to want to hear from speakers who are untainted by having lived…”

Yes, which of us hasn’t, while in a position of power, acquiesced in an illegal, disastrous war and an official policy of torture? You would come off as less defensive, Rod, if you didn’t put your thumb on the scale in this way.

There is no question to my mind that left wing radicals, who know nothing about how the real world works but only theories they have read about how it is supposed to work are not people you want to trust with absolute power and can cause an extraordinary bloodbath given absolute power.

Yeah, ditto for all kinds of other political persuasions, including a fair chunk of the Tea Party.

What we need, to give any prescription for human ills a fair shake, is competent, experienced, trained, professionals. That’s actually what Lenin meant when he called for professional revolutionaries, but events moved too fast. The fact that events WILL move too fast is a reason to be cautious about dissolving the existing order.

One of the advantages of the American Revolution is that it was fought by people who had experience with government of the terrain they fought to take power in.

(True, the problem with American conservatives is that we are too much enamored of the evils we have, and insufficiently motivated to imagine a better way to live and to work to achieve that end.)

Baloney.

American Conservatives are just enamored with different utopian ideals. How did American conservative politicians react when told that stabilizing post-war Iraq might not be easy or even possible? How do they react when told we simply might not be able to affect meaningful change in Syria or Ukraine?

Also, you’re right, it was damn hypocritical of those protesters to protest Rice and then demand that the university bring in Obama as a speaker.

Which I assume they must’ve done, because otherwise bringing Obama up would be opportunistic and stupid. You aren’t required to mention every bad thing ever in a protest.

Hell, when Occupy started to attract a lot of diverse interests they were criticized for not having a clear enough message.

Lastly, as has been pointed out to you numerous times, students protested Rice because of her actions, not her words.

You could argue, rather easily, that her actions don’t rise to the level of deserving protest.

What you have chosen to argue, instead, is that no speaker should ever be ostracized for their actions, because we have lots to learn from any opposing views.

Rod, one of the things you may want to look at is how the concept of “tolerance” itself has eroded. This concept, or ethic, was born out of Europe’s religious wars. There were things you liked, things you hated, and then – in the middle – were things you didn’t like, but could tolerate or put up with.

Starting in the ’80s “tolerance” was changed. The middle ground was disposed of. Now, as a conservative you can, and I think should, object to that. But you have to play fair. You may resent having to embrace gay marriage, but you need to allow that others should not be made to embrace the Jewish or Muslim communities either – or accept African Americans for that matter.

On the one hand, you resent that you’re being made to accept gay marriage. But are you willing to go the whole difference and be just as critical of the way people with other antipathies are being treated the same way? This is where I see you as being hypocritical. Those people are all legitimately “bad” – but you draw the line at gay marriage.

To address the article: if human rights are where the Marxist-Leninists turned after disillusionment with their radical revolutionary ideology, how come the “unrepentant” Marxist-Leninists ROUTINELY denounce the apolitical-neutral concept of universal human rights, specifically for serving as cover for aggression and invasion and sanctions and the like, i.e., for violations of human rights? Just trying to throw you off course?

Reinhold, one can call oneself a Marxist-Leninist without having a proletarian bone in one’s body. One can do this as a political ward boss, as an ethnic supremacist, as a leader of peasant uprisings, as a comfortable liberal… So maybe its time to stop putting -ism after someone’s name, and start recognizing, yes, certain things Marx wrote are accurate descriptives, certain things Lenin did worked, and as a body of authority, none of them is strictly reliable.

Well, I don’t call myself Marxist-Leninist at all, so I don’t see your point. The Marxists around––not of one stripe, sure, but nonetheless a coherent tradition, to my mind––tend to be very critical of human rights ideology, as I’m sure you know––along the lines: ‘it’s really just cover for big capitalist states to invade and sanction others in the name of democracy and human rights.’ So I didn’t get Dreher’s point about the affinity between the pure ideology of Marxist-Leninism and that of human rights; by that logic, there’s an affinity between the old-Left Marxism-Leninism of the CPUSA and right-wing conservatism, since there was also an exodus of communists to conservatism (I’m thinking of Frank Meyer, one of the original National Review editors, or the God that Failed collection). Or there’s an affinity between Marxism-Leninism and whatever else “repentant” Marxists turned to once they gave up on all that. See what I mean?

Whittaker Chambers, for instance, also thought that the ex-communists who became radical right-wingers did so because of their predilection for purist radical ideologies. You could say it about anyone. The truth is, the desire for purity arises within any ideology that experiences a real or imagined ‘corruption’––internal flaws which expose it to ‘outside influences,’ which then must be purged. No ideology is pure, so purity becomes a stronger desire depending on how strong the impurity is.

Whittaker Chambers was a tortured soul looking for a social context to act out his own personal demons. What he needed was some sort of psychotherapy. Neither the communists nor the anti-communists were wise to place much confidence in the poor man.

But perhaps we agree on something Reinhold. I don’t agree on the affinity between Marxism-Leninism and the “human rights” line of advocacy either. Frankly, human rights has become such a nebulous term I try not to use it — albeit I enjoy the story “The Nutcracker Coup” reprinted in Isaac Asimov’s Christmas.

I don’t call myself a Marxist-Leninist either, but not for lack of trying. I find no reason to reject the basic content of the labor theory of value, or the notion of surplus value, and I can discern very real contradictory interests between the owners of capital and those who live by the sweat of their brow. I recognize that Lenin began with the finest of motives, and much of his early polemicizing was against the juvenile preoccupations of precisely the sort of self styled “leftists” that Rod sometimes rails against. But, his organizational theory was a failure in its own terms, over the long haul.

There was a kind of faddish preoccupation with “leftism” in the western nations in the latter half of the last century. It did not go well, and those who were most faddish have devolved into “human rights” polemicists without really thinking about what they are doing.

I do believe that individuals have a certain integrity. I know that it is materially possible to trample on or suppress that integrity. I prefer a framework of government that endeavors to provide a space for that integrity to flourish, but I recognize that it cannot flourish universally in the absence of a common framework that values individual integrity.

As far as nut-wing anti-commies go, Whittaker is my favorite, if only for his hatred of ex-communist as well as pro-capitalist conservatives (two varieties I can’t stand, unlike, say, Dreher’s more socio-religious strand).
But yes, I think we agree in broad-strokes. I have no inherent problem with Marxism, and, as you say, only conditional problems with Leninism (I think it proved that nationalization is not the road to collectivization). My favorite work of his––and I think Dreher would like it as well!––is “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder,” so I agree that his critiques of, well, infantile leftism are pretty good (basically the opposite of the ‘utopian ideologue anti-pragmatist’ characterization given by the right-wing).

when you say actual democracies almost always fall to the right, you really need to remember that in every case of such, the democracy fell because of the demand by the working masses for a really radical socialist system – direct socialist democracy, whereby every decision in the economy would be voted on by the people. Have a close look at Germany with Hitler, Italy with Mussolini, Chile with Pinochet, and you see this pattern with remarkable clarity.

The urban working masses in those nations were not willing to sacrifice the purity of radical socialism: they wanted to ensure they were equal with the former powerful classes and had (relatively) little concern for the costs.

It may well be that without a popular conservative or nationalist movement democracy will not fall in the Enriched World today. A hundred and fifty years of class struggle has radically weakened the ruling class’ belief in natural law and private property, which allowed them to challenge the idea of democracy in Marx’ time and for another ninety years.